Year's Best Scifi 8 Part 13

By afternoon, he wasn't thinking about much of anything. The bottle had been out of reach for a while, but it wasn't worth the effort to get off his hammock.

How many hours had he spent in this thing? he wondered. More likely the time should be measured in months. The hammock was the fabric of s.p.a.cetime, Hank decided, and he was a gravitational sink, warping the geodesics around his body. By now he knew every fiber of the netting; at that very moment he could tell that there was a single crease running under his left b.u.t.tock. He tried to mentally picture the folded topology down there-the strands in the middle doing no work at all, forcing its neighbors to pull twice their weight.

Just like the Line, he realized. Only the Line was different because...

Hank bolted up straight, nearly spinning the hammock and dumping him onto the sand. The topology shift didn't have to be in the primary fibers, he realized. The slack fibers could carry a current as well.

And if they were starting to shift...

Five minutes later he was at his wife's computer, commencing his first literature search in nearly two years.

"So there you have it," Hank told his wife two nights later. "That's my best guess."

Julia squinted at the pencil sketches that Hank had just drawn for her, shaking her head. "I might understand the concept, but certainly not the details. What am I supposed to do with this?"

Hank shrugged, got up from the table and padded into the bathroom to get ready for bed. "I don't know what you do with it," he called over his shoulder. "That's for you to decide."

He was in the middle of brushing his teeth when he saw in the mirror that Julia was standing beside him, glaring with a fury he hadn't seen in years.

"For me to decide?! Me? What about you?!"

Hank spun to face her, his mouth full of foam. "Whmmh?"

"Do you know how glad I've been these last two days, seeing you actually do some work you enjoy? I know you're not happy here. I know these islands are sapping the life out of you. But now that you've figured out this problem you're just going to drop it? You're just going to flop right back into your hammock, back to the way things were?"

Hank spat into the sink, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and looked up to stare at his own reflection. "This was just a one-time coincidence. As soon as you report it, like it or not, things will be right back where they were. I'm not needed here."

"Sally needs you, you know that. h.e.l.l, if you're right about this, the whole G.o.dd.a.m.n solar system needs you."

He turned again to face her. "And you?"

"I..." Julia drew a breath through pursed lips. "I need my husband. But what I don't need is-"

Julia broke off as Sally appeared in the doorway, half-asleep and obviously frightened. Hank dropped to a squat and she ran into his arms.

"Were we too loud for you?" Hank asked, stroking her hair. "We're sorry, we'll be quiet."

He stood up, lifting his daughter into the air. Julia stepped over to plant a kiss on her cheek, then glanced up apologetically at Hank. He smiled at his wife, nodded, and carried Sally off to bed.

Hank ran a final check of his computer model while the dozen bird people nestled in for the presentation. He had first considered making a physical model, but the only string he could find on the island was his hammock, and he wasn't ready to sacrifice it just yet. Instead, he had had to dredge up his old programming skills for the proper 3-D rendering.

"Everyone ready?" he asked the crowd. Julia nodded in reply, then winked at him. Sally sat next to her mother, peeking inside a Tupperware container at her pet lava lizard, Darwin.

"OK," Hank began. "This is a molecular view of one section of the Line. The original design." The lattice appeared on the screen behind him, blue and red lines arrayed in a webbed cylinder.

"Each one of these lines is a single-wall buckytube, and together they form this larger cylinder calleda fiber. The blue strands are the primaries, where all the strain is carried. But you'll notice that there are more secondary red tubes than blue ones. That's because if there's a point failure..."

Now a virtual pair of scissors appeared and snipped one of the blue strands. The fiber stretched only slightly as two red lines snapped into place to take up the slack. "Redundancy. And I'm only showing you the tubes and the fibers. These fibers are woven into what's known as a bundle, and in turn the bundles form the backbone of the Line itself. Each level of complexity has both primary and secondary strands, and the redundancy gives the Line an expected 700- year lifetime."

"Only 695 to go," muttered the penguin expert.

"Or maybe not," Hank retorted. "Which is the whole point. The redundancy a.s.sumes that the secondary fibers maintain their structure, even when they're not in use."

Now the 3-D graphics zoomed in on a spherical-fullerene intersection where two red lines crossed a blue. At this resolution the lines were no longer 1-dimensional; now each buckytube appeared as an actual cylinder, composed of a geometrical spiral of dots.

"Each one of these dots is a carbon atom," Hank explained. "And as I said, this is the original design. A full quantum a.n.a.lysis was performed on this design, to make sure that the secondary fibers wouldn't degrade, even without full tension. The entire simulation series took 19 months to run on ASCI Platinum. And then they changed the design."

Hank hit a b.u.t.ton on the computer and now the spherical intersections shifted ever so slightly. "This was what they actually built, shaving ten months off construction. Very subtle change-only two carbon atoms have moved per intersection. But the orbital pattern is different enough to require an entirely new calculation.

"Now, there are public doc.u.ments which refer to a new calculation, but nothing about it was ever published. And it only took 6 months from the design change to the final ratification. It all points to someone doing a half-a.s.sed perturbative a.n.a.lysis using the old design as a starting point, and pa.s.sing it off as the real thing."

"I don't understand," said Fernando from the front row. "This has something to do with magnetic fields?"

Hank sighed. Apparently the nanotech details were lost on this crowd. Still, it was good practice for later.

"It's possible," Hank said, "although I can't say for sure. The concern is that the new design might be susceptible to topology shifts like this." He hit his last animation cue, and one of the secondary tubes slipped. The structure didn't break, but one row of carbon atoms slipped relative to another, leaving the red tube with a different spiral pattern than the others.

"This weakens the fiber, and if it happened throughout the line, might shorten its lifetime considerably.

A side effect would be that these shifted tubes can become electrically conducting, and perhaps generate their own magnetic fields. And once currents start flowing through them, all the calculations are going to be way off. It might even accelerate the slipping process."

Julia spoke up. "I'm sure Hank's on to something. We've seen what's happening to the migration patterns."

Hank flipped off the projector as the bird people started chattering among themselves. Only Fernando got to his feet and approached him, a worried look on his face.

"Tell me, son. If you're right.... They're going to have to shut down the Line for a while?"

"At the very least."

Fernando's old eyes sparkled mischievously. "Well, I can tell you, you'll have a lot of support from the people in this room. But you're going to have a h.e.l.l of a time getting anyone on Isabela to listen to you."

"That's the nice thing about the scientific process," Hank said with a grin. "After I make the claim, the evidence will prove me right or wrong."

Fernando shook his head sadly. "I've played this game for many years, son. This isn't about evidence, or even science. Be careful."

"Don't worry, Fernando. I think I can handle this." "I hope so," the old man replied, turning back to converse with the rest of the crowd. "I hope so."

A week later, Hank finally managed to contact an actual Tethercorp employee over the net. It was still before dawn on the Galapagos, but by now he had resorted to calling the London office.

The man on his computer screen didn't look like a scientist; probably a mid-level bureaucrat. No matter. Hank would start with this guy and work his way up the chain.

The bureaucrat held a printout of Hank's report up to the camera. "Is this yours?" he asked.

"Yes. I'm a nanotech engineer from-"

"I'm having trouble filing this one," the man interrupted. "The bulk of it looks like it should go into Harmless Crackpot, but this first paragraph reads more like a Bomb Threat. Could you clarify your position for me?"

Hank was livid, but forced himself to speak slowly and deliberately. "Could you please tell me, then, what is the proper channel for scientists to present-"

"Harmless Crackpot, then. Thank you." The picture flickered off.

"Jesus!" Hank stomped outside and stared out into Darwin's Bay. A cruise ship was heading out to sea, stirring up a brilliant wake of bioluminescence. He waited for the anger to subside, raising his gaze from the lights below to the stars above. Topside Station, gateway to the solar system, was visible directly overhead. It was brighter even than Venus. Hank's neck began to ache, but staring upward was better than being hunched over the computer.

"You can do this," said Julia from behind him.

Hank turned around, startled. "What?" he snapped.

"You can do this. Don't give up so easily."

"I'm not giving up."

"But you're not doing what you need to do, either."

Hank clenched his fists. "I'm perfectly able to do this by myself."

"I don't get it." Julia raised her hands in confusion. "What's so terrible about contacting your old colleagues? What do you still think you're running from?"

"I didn't run. I gave up my job to be with you and Sally."

"Dammit, Hank, you're not going to make me feel guilty about your decision! You were the one who proved we couldn't live apart."

Hank shut up for a moment, biting off the snappy reply which came to mind. Yes, he had had an affair, but weren't they supposed to be beyond that?

"What do you want from me?" he said at last. "I'm doing science again, OK? I'm working. So now you're asking me to go dump the problem on Vargas' lap, let the real scientists solve the problem?"

Julia shook her head. "That's not the issue and you know it. You haven't contacted these people in three years. Are you afraid of them? What do you imagine they think of you?" She stepped forward to wrap her arms around him, and he didn't fight her off.

"Just that..."he began. "Just that I washed out, couldn't handle the job. I think Vargas is the only one who really knew why I left."

"Then show them what you're capable of. Show them what you've found. If they really think you're a shabby scientist, then prove them wrong."

"It's not that easy."

"Isn't it?"

They held each other, silently, as dawn crept into the sky.

In the end, Hank had resorted to an old-fashioned email.

An actual conversation would have been too awkward, he decided, but writing a letter hadn't been as painful as he'd thought. He'd picked the two colleagues who had been closest to him-not counting Vargas, of course-and sent them each a three-page summary of his findings. And now, only 24 hours later, he was startled to have already received a reply.

Hank; good to hear from you. How are Sally and Julia? Finally became a mother myself last year-twin girls; see the pics.

Interesting problem you've run across. I don't know any Tethercorp techs personally, but I think Vargas does. Mind if I ask him? I know you two didn't part on the best of terms, so let me know.

Still, no one will authorize a serious theory effort unless you come up with some decent evidence.

Bird migration? Don't think that will fly around here, so to speak. Can't they measure the Line conductivity from the base station?

Let me know if you come up with some real proof. I'll see what I can do in the meanwhile.

-Abby

Moments later Hank was banging out a quick response, warning Abby not to bring Vargas into this.

But he paused before sending it, thought for a few minutes, and finally erased the request.

Perhaps it was time. After what had happened, he knew that Luis Vargas would prefer never to hear from his traitorous friend ever again. But Julia was right; it was time to stop running. Yes, it would probably be better to contact Luis directly. But it would be hard. And it would be so easy to just let events take their course, to let Abby make contact for him.

Julia had been able to put the affair behind her. Hopefully Luis and Paula had done the same, had been able to move on with their lives.

There was even the outside chance that Luis didn't hate him quite so much as he deserved to.

"You seem frustrated," said Julia.

Hank sat up straight, startled by the interruption. "That's an understatement." He glanced back down at the computer screen. "I can't figure out how to measure it. Not for less than ten million, anyway. If only we could afford a fleet of custom microcopters."

"How to measure the magnetic field, you mean? Too bad it's not a biology problem, or we could use my extra grant money. Still, it can't be that hard to pull off. After all, the albatross figured it out."

Hank snickered. "The G.o.dd.a.m.n albatross. If only that were enough evidence.... I'm realizing that we hard scien tists don't give animals a lot of credit."

"Maybe if they came down to Genovesa, saw the birds for themselves-"

"No," said Hank. "It doesn't mean anything to them. They want to see hard data, not birds."

Julia frowned. "But birds are hard data."

"Not to an engineer, darling."

"Hmmpf."

Hank returned his attention to the screen, which was currently displaying an image of Base Station, where the Line lifted its cargo off the Earth's surface. It was situated at the saddle point on an east-west ridge connecting Mt. Wolf and Mt. Ecuador, overlooking the ocean to the north and the south. The area surrounding the Station was covered with metal warehouses, transformers, and power cables, which meant that a ground-based measurement of the B-field would be worse than useless. He had to get up off the ground, away from all other possible currents. Against that requirement he had to contend with a strictly enforced no-fly zone within a 50 km radius of the Line, not to mention his shoestring budget.

"Julia, just how am I going to get my hands on safe, cheap, airborne magnetic field detectors? I need dozens, more likely thousands, if we want to take a temporal snapshot."

After a moment of silence, Julia burst into laughter. "These islands are filled with exactly what you need! Too bad you engineers don't trust them..." She laughed some more.